Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I once read that GTP eggs need to be at 95% humidity, but cannot make any contact with water. Can someone please explain how this is humanly possible? If the air has moisture in it, the eggs must be contacting some water. If I was to incubate them in say, a hova-bator, how would I get the humidity that high without harming the eggs? I take it these eggs cannot make direct contact with moist vermeculite, so would I need to place them in a plastic container inside the incubator with vermeculite? I just need to be spun in the right direction. Thanks in advance to any help, positive or negative!
john
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"People change and your changing"
Seals and Crofts 1976

........I once read that GTP eggs need to be at 95% humidity, but cannot make any contact with water. Can someone please explain how this is humanly possible? If the air has moisture in it, the eggs must be contacting some water. If I was to incubate them in say, a hova-bator, how would I get the humidity that high without harming the eggs? I take it these eggs cannot make direct contact with moist vermeculite, so would I need to place them in a plastic container inside the incubator with vermeculite? I just need to be spun in the right direction. Thanks in advance to any help, positive or negative!
john

John,

The eggs of chondros need high humidity, but should be kept on a dry substrait. This can be done by allowing the female, if she is a good mother, to incubate the eggs herself. Of course, if this method is chosen, the female needs to have enough fat reserves to withstand fasting for nearly 4 months.......only taking 49 days to incubate. Seeing a female brooding is a beautiful thing. They completely enclose the eggs withing the coils, not allowing anything but air to contact them through the coils.

A couple of other methods are the no substrait method, in which the eggs are placed in deli-cups inside a water chamber. This method proved problematic for me as the eggs became too dry and lost mass after only a few days. This has however worked great for some breeders.

I used pearlite with this years clutch and it worked great. Since water settles to the bottom of the pearlite and wicks up, I just poured water into the egg box and placed it inside the incubator with several water tubs for humidity. I opted this method after trying no substrait for a week. After trying this, the eggs became full again after about 3-4 days. I used a close lid container with a small hole in the top for air exchange. I also opened the container every couple of days, and every day during the last couple weeks of incubation.

The vermiculite method has also shown to work well as long as it's kept on the dryer side. I've never used this, but I know of others that tried and failed with the no substrait and switched to vermiculite with great results.

Remember, high humidity with dry substrait, along with precise temps. You could also try the suspended panty hose method, but it can get tricky. I hope this helps.

Brandon Osborne

Brandon, do you happen to have pics of this? Im a very visual person.

thanks
chris

...

np

I don't have them any more, but I'll try to get some this week for you of the same setup to give you an idea.

Here's one of the kids from this years hatch. Already changing at 4 months old. From what I've heard from others, the neos that start changing early usually end up with a high amount of yellow. The adults are from Lemon Tree lineage and produced 3 really nice lemons in 2001. Can't wait to see what they end up like.

Brandon

A male that I'm going to try this year.

Brandon Osborne

A female that I may try if she weighs enough. She's been feeding on small rats for about 8 months, so I'm hopeful. These guys are just now 2 yrs. 4 months old. Fun times ahead!

Brandon Osborne

very nice snakes!